Thailand: Chiang Mai
Overall we really liked Chiang Mai. Although there are apparently about 1.6 million people, it had a small town feel.
In the old part of town where we stayed there weren't any highrises at all. Just homes with a guest house, restaurant, cooking school, store, or massage parlor attached. Thai people invented the phrase "home based business"!
For the complete set of Photos for Chiang Mai, go here.
We did the obligatory temple visit, to a temple dating to around the 1300's. One you've seen one or two, they all start to look the same.
The part I enjoy most about visiting temples is the tranquil garden beside the building where the shade offers respite from the heat and we can ponder messages like the below while listening to the trance inducing chant of monks.
This part made Buddhism seem really appealing.
Cooking Class!
We went to a cooking class at Baan Thai Cooking school here in Chiang Mai. Like most other businesses in the old town part of Chiang Mai, the cookery school was actually part of a family home.
Cooking class was really fun and we had a great teacher, a young woman named Boom, who spoke English very well and taught us a little Thai. Fish sauce is "Nam Bplah", literally "Water Fish".
On the side of the house, there was a row of six cooking stations with a small gas stove, a wok, and other supplies.
Beside that was a room where we sat on the ground or small stools preparing our vegetables and curry paste.
At the front of the house was a room with a low table where we sat and ate the dishes we prepared.
The funny thing about cooking class was that over the course of about four hours we prepared and thus had to eat five thai dishes including one very rich Penang Curry with rice. And for some reason they even felt that we needed a snack of sticky rice and fruit before we commenced the cooking and eating!
Our menu consisted of:
- Snack of sticky rice with banana, dragon fruit and coconut jello
- Thai style Pad Thai (not at all like the North American version)
- Tom Yam Soup (Hot and Spicy Soup with Shrimp) -- YUM!
- Sweet and Sour Stir Fry with Chicken
- Penang Curry with Chicken and Rice
- Mango and Coconut Sticky Rice (a common thai dessert)
We were basically rolled out of there and opted for transportation home, though it was only a five minute walk away.
At cooking class we had fun chatting with a Swede named Nicholas, and an American couple from Port Townsend, named Mike and Janice--all super nice, laid back people.
One surprise at cooking class was that we started out learning vegetable carving, basically making garnishes for our first dish of Pad Thai. We had a lot of laughs doing that as it was really fine work and we also learned that Thai children learn vegetable carving in primary school. They also "learn" how to eat spicy food.
Our teacher, Boom, really impressed upon me how important food and food presentation is to the Thai people.
Making the curry paste was really interesting. On our little tree trunk cutting boards and with big meat cleavers, the six of us chopped up ingredients including garlic, galangal ginger, lemongrass, kafir lime leaf and peel, and red chilis.
We chopped for about 10 minutes making it as fine as we could and then dumped it all into one very large mortar. Boom told us we were learning to be good Thai wives as we pounded the ingredients with the pestle. Phew!
After about 15 minutes of pounding we had an acceptable paste, so we each took a ball, some magic Penang powder, a glob of honey-like palm sugar and went to make our curry. We stirred all the ingredients into boiling coconut milk, added chicken, onion, and voila! Our curry was ready in about three minutes.
It was the most delicious Penang curry I've ever had!
We went to a cooking class at Baan Thai Cooking school here in Chiang Mai. Like most other businesses in the old town part of Chiang Mai, the cookery school was actually part of a family home.
Cooking class was really fun and we had a great teacher, a young woman named Boom, who spoke English very well and taught us a little Thai. Fish sauce is "Nam Bplah", literally "Water Fish".On the side of the house, there was a row of six cooking stations with a small gas stove, a wok, and other supplies.
Beside that was a room where we sat on the ground or small stools preparing our vegetables and curry paste.
At the front of the house was a room with a low table where we sat and ate the dishes we prepared.
The funny thing about cooking class was that over the course of about four hours we prepared and thus had to eat five thai dishes including one very rich Penang Curry with rice. And for some reason they even felt that we needed a snack of sticky rice and fruit before we commenced the cooking and eating!
Our menu consisted of:
- Snack of sticky rice with banana, dragon fruit and coconut jello
- Thai style Pad Thai (not at all like the North American version)
- Tom Yam Soup (Hot and Spicy Soup with Shrimp) -- YUM!
- Sweet and Sour Stir Fry with Chicken
- Penang Curry with Chicken and Rice
- Mango and Coconut Sticky Rice (a common thai dessert)
We were basically rolled out of there and opted for transportation home, though it was only a five minute walk away.
At cooking class we had fun chatting with a Swede named Nicholas, and an American couple from Port Townsend, named Mike and Janice--all super nice, laid back people.
One surprise at cooking class was that we started out learning vegetable carving, basically making garnishes for our first dish of Pad Thai. We had a lot of laughs doing that as it was really fine work and we also learned that Thai children learn vegetable carving in primary school. They also "learn" how to eat spicy food.Our teacher, Boom, really impressed upon me how important food and food presentation is to the Thai people.
Making the curry paste was really interesting. On our little tree trunk cutting boards and with big meat cleavers, the six of us chopped up ingredients including garlic, galangal ginger, lemongrass, kafir lime leaf and peel, and red chilis.
We chopped for about 10 minutes making it as fine as we could and then dumped it all into one very large mortar. Boom told us we were learning to be good Thai wives as we pounded the ingredients with the pestle. Phew!After about 15 minutes of pounding we had an acceptable paste, so we each took a ball, some magic Penang powder, a glob of honey-like palm sugar and went to make our curry. We stirred all the ingredients into boiling coconut milk, added chicken, onion, and voila! Our curry was ready in about three minutes.
It was the most delicious Penang curry I've ever had!
Flower Festival
We timed our visit to Chiang Mai well, as we got to see the Flower Festival parades, with beauty queen contenders riding gorgeous, intricately adorned floats.
We didn't fully appreciate what we were seeing until the parade ended at the park and we were able to inspect up close how each little flower was pinned onto the gigantic floats. Rocky estimated it would have taken months of work to create these, but of course the flowers would wilt, so realistically it was probably done over one or two days by many many hands.
The pictures will speak for themselves.
For more Festival photos go here.
We timed our visit to Chiang Mai well, as we got to see the Flower Festival parades, with beauty queen contenders riding gorgeous, intricately adorned floats.We didn't fully appreciate what we were seeing until the parade ended at the park and we were able to inspect up close how each little flower was pinned onto the gigantic floats. Rocky estimated it would have taken months of work to create these, but of course the flowers would wilt, so realistically it was probably done over one or two days by many many hands.
The pictures will speak for themselves.
For more Festival photos go here.
posted by Rocky and Penny at
12:11 AM
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